A Lone Walk

by Gul Y Davis

This is a quick read but an unforgettable one. A young boy relates his journey through the mental health system and tells us about his hopes and dreams. It's a story full of cruelty and stupidity but also well-meaning gestures and positive help, none of which seems to be able to provide the simple kindness that our hero needs to survive. Once you get your nose into this you won't want to stop until you've heard the whole tale.

Extract

I believed in guardian angels. I thought you could spend your life searching for one, scanning the population for a pair of wings; but you would never find or see anything. Then one day, when you were most in need, when you had lost everything, when you had nobody, one would appear; only you wouldn't notice because they looked, behaved, smelt, felt, like anyone else does. They steadied you through a troubled time where you would have fallen, and then disappeared and you never saw or heard from them again. It was then you knew you'd been touched by a guardian angel.